September, 18 2023, 02:20pm EDT
50+ Organizations Urge Biden to Establish Civilian Climate Corps through Executive Action
Letter comes during Climate Week and on the 30th anniversary of legislation that established AmeriCorps
Today, Sunrise Movement along with 50+ national organizations – including key service, youth and environmental organizations – shared a letter calling on President Biden to establish a Civilian Climate Corps that would put young Americans to work serving their communities and fighting the climate crisis. The full text of the letter and its signatories are below.
“This summer, our country saw heatwaves, wildfires and floods that destroyed communities, uprooted families and claimed hundreds of lives,” the signed organizations wrote. “While previous Executive Orders and legislation under your administration demonstrate tremendous progress toward meeting our Paris climate goals and your campaign promises, this summer has made clear that we must be as ambitious as possible in tackling the great crisis of our time. We encourage your administration to create a Civilian Climate Corps through existing authorities, with existing climate funding, that can coordinate across relevant federal agencies.”
The letter highlighted the significance of what this could mean for young voters, in particular, a vital voting bloc for Democrats.
“Young voters widely support this vision. Half of all voters under 45 say they would consider joining the Climate Corps if a job was available to them,” the organizations note. “In 2020, young people helped ensure your election to office. After high profile approvals of fossil fuel projects, it’s time to deliver for this critical constituency and show that you and your administration are serious about an all out mobilization to confront the climate crisis. We urge you to support this historic investment in jobs and justice.”
This comes during Climate Week and after the March to End Fossil Fuels, which saw 75k participants – including tens of thousands of students – take to the streets calling for bold climate action from the Biden administration. Many of the same organizations leading the protest have signed the letter.
The letter also highlighted four key principles for a Civilian Climate Corps initiative created through Executive Action:
- The Civilian Climate Corps must take a whole-of-government approach to the climate crisis.
- The Civilian Climate Corps must prioritize equity in the communities it serves and the Corps members it trains.
- The Civilian Climate Corps must provide a pathway to long-term employment through good-paying union jobs.
- The Civilian Climate Corps must center the needs and leadership of local communities in order to achieve its national mission.
Sunrise Movement will be doubling down on its efforts to push for a Civilian Climate Corps through executive action. They've already spoken to their 100+ hubs and chapters about restarting a national campaign and increasing pressure on the administration to get this done.
The full text of the letter is as follows:
September 18, 2023
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Biden,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to express our support for an Executive Order establishing a Civilian Climate Corps that would put young Americans to work serving their communities and tackling the climate crisis.
This summer, our country saw heatwaves, wildfires and floods that destroyed communities, uprooted families and claimed hundreds of lives. While previous Executive Orders and legislation under your administration demonstrate tremendous progress toward meeting our Paris climate goals and your campaign promises, this summer has made clear that we must be as ambitious as possible in tackling the great crisis of our time. We encourage your administration to create a Civilian Climate Corps through existing authorities, with existing climate funding, that can coordinate across relevant federal agencies.
Tapping into enthusiasm for the sweeping social programs of the New Deal era, the possibility of a modern Civilian Climate Corps remains a popular and exciting strategy in our country’s plan to combat climate change. Americans want the opportunity to serve their communities, address the most pressing threat facing our country, and get experience that can lead to long-term, good-paying union employment. The Civilian Climate Corps would let them do so, through national service work that ranges from improving energy efficiency to supporting disaster resilience and recovery. With high workforce development standards and strong environmental justice requirements, an ambitious Climate Corps would train a generation of climate leaders, kickstart the climate workforce mobilization, and directly combat systemic racial injustice by prioritizing resources and job creation in underserved communities.
Young voters widely support this vision. Half of all voters under 45 say they would consider joining the Climate Corps if a job was available to them. Like the COVID recovery package’s $1,400 checks, putting young people into high-quality national service positions to tackle climate change and on pathways to good-paying, union jobs would make precisely the kind of visible policy change in Americans’ lives that can demonstrate the power of government to serve its people.
Strong workforce standards will be essential in realizing the full potential of the Civilian Climate Corps. It is critical that the Civilian Climate Corps set corps members up for success during and after their year of service, and that this holds true across all national service programs. A fully established and appropriated Civilian Climate Corps should provide a life-sustaining wage for all corps members, plus healthcare, childcare, and educational benefits that would help corps members and their families thrive. Corps members should also receive technical and vocational training during their service, including through pre-apprenticeships in partnership with local union chapters, to open pathways to stable careers in the clean economy.
The Civilian Climate Corps must also advance environmental justice and correct the racially exclusionary practices of the original Civilian Conservation Corps. It must be a viable opportunity for all young Americans, and it must address the disproportionate burden on communities of color across the country from the overlapping harms of toxic pollution, economic disinvestment, and other structural inequities. The Civilian Climate Corps can be a force to directly combat those inequities and support these communities. To that end, any new Civilian Climate Corps program should strive to direct half of corps investments into overburdened communities, and recruit at least half of its corps members from those same places, using the authority under the Justice 40 initiative and additional efforts. The program should also ensure gender equality, provide opportunities for corps members of a range of ages and abilities, give corps members opportunities regardless of immigration status, protect tribal sovereignty and prioritize the needs and leadership of the communities it serves. By prioritizing local recruitment and engaging in local consultation on project design and implementation the CCC can ensure that its climate action is sustainably driven from the bottom-up.
We know that when you hear the words climate change, you think jobs. Establishing a Civilian Climate Corps is a key opportunity to invest in the workforce of tomorrow and clearly demonstrate that climate action and job creation are inextricably and positively linked. Going big on the Civilian Climate Corps and ensuring that it centers job creation, environmental justice, and direct community investment will be an essential step in our collective fight to adapt to and mitigate climate change.
In 2020, young people helped ensure your election to office. After high profile approvals of fossil fuel projects, it’s time to deliver for this critical constituency and show that you and your administration are serious about an all out mobilization to confront the climate crisis. We urge you to support this historic investment in jobs and justice.
Sincerely,
Americas Service Commissions
Blue America
Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund
Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Chiron Communications
CivicWell
Conservation Trust for North Carolina
Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action
Debt Collective
Evergreen Action
Farallon Strategies
Food & Water Watch
Gen Z for Change
GreenFaith
GreenLatinos
GRID Alternatives
Healthy Communities of the Capital Area
Hip Hop Caucus
IfNotNow
Justice Democrats
Labor Network for Sustainability
League of Conservation Voters
Maine Conservation Voters
Main Farm & Sea to School Network
Maine Farm to Institution
March for Our Lives
Marked by Covid
Milwaukee Riverkeeper
National Wildlife Federation
Next100
NextGen America
OIC of America, Inc.
Oil Change International
Our Hawaii
Partnership for the CCC
Path to Progress
People’s Action
Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada
ReImagine Appalachia
RuralOrganizing
Service Employees International Union
Serve Washington
Service Year Alliance
Sierra Club
States for Service Coalition
Sunrise Movement
The Climate Initiative
The Climate Reality Project
The Corps Network
US High Speed Rail Association
WildEarth Guardians
Working Families Party
Sunrise Movement is a movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process.
LATEST NEWS
US Led 'Unprecedented' Surge in Global Military Spending in 2024
"As governments increasingly prioritize military security, often at the expense of other budget areas, the economic and social trade-offs could have significant effects on societies for years to come," said one expert.
Apr 28, 2025
Military spending worldwide soared to $2.718 trillion last year, meaning it "has increased every year for a full decade, going up by 37% between 2015 and 2024," according to an annual report released Monday.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has tracked conflict, disarmament, and weapons for nearly six decades. Its 2024 spending report states that "for the second year in a row, military expenditure increased in all five of the world's geographical regions, reflecting heightened geopolitical tensions across the globe."
In a Monday statement, Xiao Liang, a researcher with the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program, highlighted that "over 100 countries around the world raised their military spending in 2024."
"It was the highest year-on-year increase since the end of the Cold War."
"This was really unprecedented... It was the highest year-on-year increase since the end of the Cold War," Liang told Agence France-Press, while acknowledging that there may have been larger jumps during the Cold War but Soviet Union data is not available.
Liang warned that "as governments increasingly prioritize military security, often at the expense of other budget areas, the economic and social trade-offs could have significant effects on societies for years to come."
The United States—whose Republican lawmakers are currently cooking up a plan to give even more money to a Pentagon that's never passed an audit—led all countries, with $997 billion in military spending. The report points out that the U.S. not only allocated "3.2 times more than the second-largest spender," but also "accounted for 37% of global military expenditure in 2024 and 66% of spending by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members."
In the second spot was China, with an estimated $314 billion in spending. Nan Tian, director of the SIPRI Military Expenditure and Arms Production Program, raised the alarm about spending in Asia.
"Major military spenders in the Asia-Pacific region are investing increasing resources into advanced military capabilities," said Tian. "With several unresolved disputes and mounting tensions, these investments risk sending the region into a dangerous arms-race spiral."
In third place was Russia, with an estimated $149 billion in spending. Russia remains at war after launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Rounding out the top five were Germany ($88.5 billion) and India ($86.1 billion).
They were followed by the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, France, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Poland, Italy, and Australia. The report says that "together, the top 15 spenders in 2024 accounted for 80% of global military spending ($2,185 billion) and for 79% of the total increase in spending over the year. All 15 increased their military spending in 2024."
"The two largest year-on-year percentage increases among this group were in Israel (+65%) and Russia (+38%), highlighting the effect of major conflicts on spending trends in 2024," the publication continues. Israel has been engaged in a U.S.-backed military assault on the Gaza Strip—globally condemned as genocide—since October 2023.
"Russia once again significantly increased its military spending, widening the spending gap with Ukraine," noted SIPRI researcher Diego Lopes da Silva. "Ukraine currently allocates all of its tax revenues to its military. In such a tight fiscal space, it will be challenging for Ukraine to keep increasing its military spending."
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday announced an upcoming three-day truce to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for an immediate monthlong cease-fire.
All NATO members boosted military spending last year, which SIPRI researcher Jade Guiberteau Ricard said was "driven mainly by the ongoing Russian threat and concerns about possible U.S. disengagement within the alliance."
"It is worth saying that boosting spending alone will not necessarily translate into significantly greater military capability or independence from the USA," the expert added. "Those are far more complex tasks."
Another SIPRI researcher, Lorenzo Scarazzato, highlighted that "for the first time since reunification Germany became the biggest military spender in Western Europe, which was due to the €100 billion special defense fund announced in 2022."
"The latest policies adopted in Germany and many other European countries suggest that Europe has entered a period of high and increasing military spending that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future," Scarazzato said.
As for the Middle East, SIPRI researcher Zubaida Kari said that "despite widespread expectations that many Middle Eastern countries would increase their military spending in 2024, major rises were limited to Israel and Lebanon."
In addition to slaughtering at least tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza over the past nearly 19 months, Israel has killed thousands of people in Lebanon while allegedly targeting the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah. Kari said that elsewhere in the region, "countries either did not significantly increase spending in response to the war in Gaza or were prevented from doing so by economic constraints."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Not Just for the Battlefield: Rights Group Warns of Dystopian World Where Killer Robots Reign
"To avoid a future of automated killing, governments should seize every opportunity to work toward the goal of adopting a global treaty on autonomous weapons systems," according to the author of the report.
Apr 28, 2025
In a report published Monday, a leading human rights group calls for international political action to prohibit and regulate so-called "killer robots"—autonomous weapons systems that select targets based on inputs from sensors rather than from humans—and examines them in the context of six core principles in international human rights law.
In some cases, the report argues, an autonomous weapons system may simply be incompatible with a given human rights principle or obligation.
The report, co-published by Human Rights Watch and Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic, comes just ahead of the first United Nations General Assembly meeting on autonomous weapons systems next month. Back in 2017, dozens of artificial intelligence and robotics experts published a letter urging the U.N. to ban the development and use of killer robots. As drone warfare has grown, those calls have continued.
"To avoid a future of automated killing, governments should seize every opportunity to work toward the goal of adopting a global treaty on autonomous weapons systems," said the author behind the report, Bonnie Docherty, a senior arms adviser at Human Rights Watch and a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic, in a statement on Monday.
According to the report, which includes recommendations on a potential international treaty, the call for negotiations to adopt "a legally binding instrument to prohibit and regulate autonomous weapons systems" is supported by at least 129 countries.
Drones relying on an autonomous targeting system have been used by Ukraine to hit Russian targets during the war between the two countries, The New York Timesreported last year.
In 2023, the Pentagon announced a program, known as the Replicator initiative, which involves a push to build thousands of autonomous drones. The program is part of the U.S. Defense Department's plan to counter China. In November, the watchdog group Public Citizen alleged that Pentagon officials have not been clear about whether the drones in the Replicator project would be used to kill.
A senior Navy admiral recently toldBloomberg that the program is "alive and well" under the Department of Defense's new leadership following U.S. President Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Docherty warned that the impact of killer robots will stretch beyond the traditional battlefield. "The use of autonomous weapons systems will not be limited to war, but will extend to law enforcement operations, border control, and other circumstances, raising serious concerns under international human rights law," she said in the statement
When it comes to the right to peaceful assembly under human rights law, which is important in the context of law enforcement exercising use force, "autonomous weapons systems would be incompatible with this right," according to the report.
Killer robots pose a threat to peaceful assembly because they "would lack human judgment and could not be pre-programmed or trained to address every situation," meaning they "would find it challenging to draw the line between peaceful and violent protesters."
Also, "the use or threat of use of autonomous weapons systems, especially in the hands of abusive governments, could strike fear among protesters and thus cause a chilling effect on free expression and peaceful assembly," per the report.
Killer robots would also contravene the principle of human dignity, according to the report, which establishes that all humans have inherent worth that is "universal and inviolable."
"The dignity critique is not focused on the systems generating the wrong outcomes," the report states. "Even if autonomous weapons systems could feasibly make no errors in outcomes—something that is extremely unlikely—the human dignity concerns remain, necessitating prohibitions and regulations of such systems."
"Autonomous weapon systems cannot be programmed to give value to human life, do not possess emotions like compassion that can generate restraint to violence, and would rely on processes that dehumanize individuals by making life-and-death decisions based on software and data points," Docherty added.
In total, the report considers the right to life; the right to peaceful assembly; the principle of human dignity; the principle of nondiscrimination; the right to privacy; and the right to remedy.
The report also lists cases where it's more ambiguous whether autonomous weapons systems would violate a certain right.
The right to privacy, for example, protects individuals from "arbitrary or unlawful" interferences in their personal life. According to the report, "The development and use of autonomous weapons systems could violate the right because, if they or any of their component systems are based on AI technology, their development, testing, training, and use would likely require mass surveillance."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Absolute Insanity': Right-Wing Activist Asks If Trump Will Suspend Habeas Corpus to Expel More Migrants
"Anyone advocating for suspending the writ of habeas corpus because they don't like due process is spitting on the legacy of those who fought and died for this country and our Constitution," said one policy expert.
Apr 28, 2025
With the Trump administration making space in the press briefing room for right-wing podcasters and other conservative "new media" content creators, viewers of briefings since President Donald Trump took office have seen his press secretary field questions about the Ukrainian president's clothing during an Oval Office meeting, compliments about Trump's "fitness plan," and attacks on reporters who have long reported from the White House.
On Monday, the first question of the briefing was derided by one Democratic politician as "absolute insanity," as right-wing commentator and influencer Rogan O'Handley—also known by the handle "DC Draino"—was given the floor to ask whether Trump will suspend the writ of habeas corpus in order to circumvent several judges' rulings and "start shipping out" undocumented immigrants without due process.
"Can you please let us know if and when the Trump administration is planning to suspend the writ of habeas corpus to circumvent these radical judges?" asked O'Handley after accusing federal judges of "thwarting [Trump's] agenda with an unprecedented number of national injunctions."
O'Handley shared some familiar right-wing talking points—saying federal judges have provided "more due process to violent MS-13 and Tren de Aragua illegal aliens than they did for U.S. citizens who peacefully protested on January 6"—as he suggested the administration should abandon the legal principle under which people who are detained are permitted to challenge their imprisonment in court.
"You have got to be kidding me," wrote Sara McGee, a Democrat running for the Texas House of Representatives.
His question came amid escalating attacks by Republicans and the administration on judges who have ruled against the White House. A Republican congressman said last month that Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. should be impeached for issuing an order against Trump's invocation of the Alien Enemies Act to expel hundreds of undocumented immigrants to El Salvador. Last week, the FBI arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping a migrant evade arrest by escorting him out of her courtroom.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, noted that O'Handley and press secretary Karoline Leavitt also repeatedly cited at least one statistic that was "completely made up"—that the Biden administration allowed 15 million undocumented immigrants into the United States—as they suggested Trump should take legal steps to force all of them out of the country without the input of the judicial system.
The undocumented population in the U.S. in 2023 was 11.7 million, according to the Center for Migration Studies, down from the peak of 12 million, which was reached in 2008.
"They've been pushing this on the right for about a week now," said Reichlin-Melnick of the push to suspend habeas corpus for undocumented immigrants. "Anyone advocating for suspending the writ of habeas corpus because they don't like due process is spitting on the legacy of those who fought and died for this country and our Constitution."
Leavitt responded to O'Handley's question by saying while she has "not heard such discussions take place... the president and the entire administration are certainly open to all legal and constitutional remedies" to continue expelling people from the United States.
Several cases of undocumented immigrants who have been sent to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center have made national headlines in recent weeks, including that of Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia; Merwil Gutiérrez, a 19-year-old who federal agents acknowledged was not who they were looking for during a raid; and Andry Hernandez Romero, a makeup artist who was accused of being a gang member solely because he had tattoos.
O'Handley's suggestion that the bedrock legal principle be suspended for undocumented immigrants—hundreds of whom have already been forced out of the country without due process—came ahead of Trump's scheduled signing of two new immigration-related executive orders.
One would direct the departments of Justice and Homeland Security to publish a list of sanctuary cities and states—those where local law enforcement are directed not to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement as it seeks to arrest undocumented immigrants.
The other, Leavitt said, would "unleash America's law enforcement to pursue criminals." The New York Postreported that the order would be related to providing local police agencies with military equipment and legal support for officers accused of wrongdoing.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular